You know who makes it hard on real victims? Those who use rare false accusations as an excuse to doubt all women. Those who shame sexual women and describe sex as “degrading” to women make it hard on real victims. Those who buy into rape myths make it hard on real victims. The rate of false rape accusations is similar to the rate for other crimes. And we are not even talking about wrongly convicted people. There’s no more reason to fear a false rape accusation than there is a false accusation of car theft. Unless, of course, you make a habit of coercing women sexually or having sex with women who have not clearly consented. But even then it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever be punished for it.

I don’t know if I believe that the men in this story are innocent. A cellphone video of the “incident” (of which the woman is not even aware) shows she wasn’t screaming or fighting, so of course it wasn’t rape! It couldn’t be that the woman was intimidated by the five men and was afraid to do anything. But I am 100 percent on board with Amanda Hess, who explains how rape culture leads to both rape and false rape accusations. Naturally there is a lot of wailing in the comments that follow. Rape allegations that turn out to be untrue are not only put on par with rape; plenty of people think it’s worse and more widespread.

Men lie about rape all the time. They say they didn’t do it. Their friend didn’t do it. But the burden is still placed upon women to not only eradicate rape, but to make sure rape culture has no male collateral damage.

33 Responses to “Women who make false rape accusations *don’t* make it harder on real victims.”

SarahMC, I was reading your comments on a certain other site in anticipation and I’m glad you addressed this here.

“A cellphone video of the “incident” (of which the woman is not even aware) shows she wasn’t screaming or fighting, so of course it wasn’t rape!”—That’s exactly what I thought when I first read about this.

Why is it when these stories come up it’s always the “what about the poor wrongly accused menz!!!!” and not “That poor woman”?!?!?! Everyone automatically takes their side. I can see how a false accusation is extremely damaging to one’s reputation and character. But like you said, even if he was accused, it’s not like he’d ever be punished for it.

I can’t get my thoughts straight on this, but all I can say is Amanda Hess and a lot of other comments I’ve read across three feminist websites have made a lot of things clear to me about rape culture. Thanks.

You’re right that the comments are by and large ridic — my favorite is the guy who basically said, “Being falsely accused of rape is much, much worse than actually being raped” (reminded me strongly of Limbaugh’s insistence that being accused of racism is much, much worse than being oppressed in by racists/a racist system). But I have decided to wade in to the comments here as a small experiment in the Socratic Method — we’ll see how it goes.

thanks for the support in the comments section, all. the latest trend is to attempt to scientifically prove that women are “sluttier” than men, based on herpes rates (???). The comments started off bad, but now they’re just insane.

@amanda – Yeah, that guy is craaaaazy. Just plain abusing both science and math. I sort of hoped that pulling out anatomical terms like “glans” would make him uncomfortable enough to shut up, but alas, it seems not…

You know how people always say that Andrea Dworkin wrote that heterosexual sex is always rape, even though she never really wrote that at all?

Well sometimes I feel like most heterosexual sex is actually what I’d consider rape.

Not all hetero sex, obviously. I myself am a frequent practitioner of non-rapey hetero sex. But it seems like so, so, so much sex that gets talked about–in the media, by my friends, in movies, in books, in advice columns, in casual conversations that I listen to on the bus–is what I would consider coerced sex. Like, if you don’t want to have sex but you do it anyway–I mean, I recognize that it isn’t the legal definition of rape. But in a world in which women are not constantly reduced to their bodies, to their sexuality, and are not always negotiating the shark infested waters of the sexually predatory heterosexual male, negotiating for affection, for security, for their children, for their safety, for being left alone for the night, for not getting hit, for keeping their boyfriend from cheating, for keeping their husband from thinking she’s a sexless old lady… It’s like, I feel like so few women I know have sex the way I do, because they are always in a state of responding to the pressure to have sex. It’s not me that’s different, it’s my male partner. It’s entirely because he does not pressure me for sex that I am able to consent without reservation when I want to, which means that the sex that I do have is had for its sake alone, not for some ulterior motive (like security, affection, the assurance that he won’t cheat, etc).

It makes me really, really sad. And it makes me extremely suspicious of any supposed recanting of alleged rape victims–because even if legally it isn’t considered rape? I’d consider it rape simply because they videotaped her without her consent or knowledge. That changes the circumstances of the sex so drastically that the consent she may (or may not) have given is beside the point. So fuck that noise to hell and back.

Yes, “the burden is still placed upon women to not only eradicate rape, but to make sure rape culture has no male collateral damage.” It’s totally unfair, but that’s where we are. So I’ll admit that every time I hear about a woman having made a false accusation of rape, I wince and think she helped make it a little harder for the next woman.

I wish we taught girls to not fear saying no when sex isn’t wanted. And I also wish we taught girls to not fear saying yes when sex is wanted. And I wish that fear of slut-shaming didn’t make things so hard, but part of me is thinking that this woman is an adult and if she wanted sex with 5 men, then she should woman up and own her desires and her behavior!

P.S. News in NY is just now reporting that they have insight into “why she lied.” Everything is explained to you, the viewer . . . by her boyfriend! Love it.

So my man is on the sofa, and I say “Here’s a question for your male brain. Which is worse, to be a man accused of and socially judged a rapist or to be a woman and physically raped?”

His reply after only a moment’s thought:
“While being accused and judged a rapist can ruin your life and destroy your reputation, it’s far worse for a woman to be raped. There’s psychological and emotional aftermath that they have to live through beyond even the act itself.”

His mother was a rape victim. Where he grew up it was so common for females from child to grown adult to be raped that they all but took it for granted as normal. When his mother was raped at about age 16, her own -mother- accused her of being a slut, so prevalent was this mentality. (Not that the grandmother was/is any sort of charming person anyway, ugh.)

We’ve got a five year old daughter. Even though he jokes about getting studded baseball bats and rabid dobermans when she’s a teenager, I know we’ll both be trying to raise her to know that saying “NO” is ok, and she doesn’t have to do anything that is hurtful or frightening. My only worry is that like society seems to teach us, even if she tells the truth it just won’t be believed by the ones who have the power to do something about it.

amen to that assessment of why someone won’t necessarily scream or fight back. Last year I was mugged and beaten by 2 teenaged girls, and I did NOT fight back or scream, because their three male friends were watching (seemed to be a gang thing), and I felt that if I “tried anything” I would get hurt a lot worse, or maybe killed. I walked away with bruises, scratches, and some hair pulled out, but nothing broken, and no teeth kicked in. That’s the best I could do, when being outnumbered that way, and you never know when someone might have a gun.

If 5 men are attacking one person, there aren’t really a lot of options. How dare ANYONE criticize someone’s self-preservation instincts?

“Men lie about rape all the time. They say they didn’t do it. Their friend didn’t do it.”
I don’t think they’re lying, per se, an awful lot of rapists seem to genuinely believe what they did wasn’t rape (which is a problem, obviously)…

Also, imo the problem with false accusations is that they get used like a bludeon against actual rape victims by MRAs and other assorted douchebags.

[...] Women who make false rape accusations *don’t* make it harder on real victims. – There is a news article making the rounds about a woman who recanted a rape allegation. SarahMC at Harpyness talks about what the real problems are in rape culture. [...]

SarahMC, I take your point. At the risk of sounding like I’m blaming the victim, though, I have to agree with pedimd. Women are effectively a minority group, and while it’s imperative for us to educate ourselves and the men in our culture, we also have to understand that acts of poor judgement by one will be attributed to all. Anyone who is African-American or Jewish or Muslim knows how that works. It’s unfair and irrational but it’s true.

The responsibility for rape culture lies primarily with men and with those women who are willing to exploit it for financial gain or power-that is beyond debate. But we as feminists can help stop false claims of rape by encouraging each other to be comfortable with our own sexuality and by teaching each other to speak clearly about what we do and don’t want.

@ mischiefmanager: I think the responsibility for rape lies with those who perpetrate it (mostly men), but saying that the responsibility for rape culture lies primarily with men is oversimplifying. When something is a cultural problem, it’s reached a level where most people in the culture are helping to perpetuate it. And they don’t have to be aware of it as a problem. For example, the mother who teaches her daughter (explicitly or by example) that it’s not “ladylike” to want sex. Or want it too much. That mom thinks she’s doing her best for her daughter by teaching her to be a proper lady, but she is helping to continue the problem.

Which, to get back to my original post, doesn’t stop me from wishing that more women would step up and buck the system.

Pedimd & mischiefmanager,
Of course I agree with what you’re saying, but the only reason women who make false accusations make it more difficult for actual victims is because of sexism and rape culture. It’s not really the false accusers who are making it harder; patriarchy makes it harder and uses the false accusers to its own ends. That’s why you don’t see the same dynamic playing out in other crimes.

I don t wanna compare being falsely accused of rape with being raped, but I don t think we should ignore the damages the first scenario can cause just because the affected are male.
And while I understand that just because there s no kicking and screaming, nor because she recanted, it wasn t rape… I see that in feminist sites, these men are guilty just as in mainstream media this woman is a *lying bitch*. we re all too quick to judge.
And some people who *celebrate* women s sexuality seem to doubt that a woman would freely participate in group sex. Well, some do.

Of course, you’re right, pedimd and SarahMC. What I’m trying to get at is that there are things we can control in the short term and on a small scale. We can’t change rape culture tomorrow but we can teach our daughters to embrace their sexuality and see it as healthy, so that they never need feel ashamed of their own choices. And we can keep educating men that it’s ultimately their responsibility to avoid putting themselves in situations in which they can have a false charge brought against them.

We are largely in agreement, mischiefmanager and SarahMC, but I can’t fully get on board with “we can keep educating men that it’s ultimately their responsibility to avoid putting themselves in situations in which they can have a false charge brought against them.” Not sure if you meant it to come out that way, but it sounds like you’re making men responsible for someone else’s lies.

The writer states that men need not fear a false rape accusation anymore than a false claim of car theft. Do you really believe that? Bogus claims of rape are the easiest to make because they require very little proof other than an accusation. If a woman wants to get even with some dude, get a major cash settlement, or has post-consensual guilt, a false claim of rape is your best bet–not a false claim of car theft or other crime. The Duke case, Tawana Brawley, this case and the soon to be vindicated Steelers QB Rothlisberger case make it pretty clear that false claims of rape are very real and that some unstable women continue to make them.

The fact that the woman in the Hofstra case has recanted and the author STILL does not think the young men are innocent speaks volumes about her.

Good point Titanis. I think this is exactly what happens in many rapes cases. A woman gets pushed to a point that she does not like and instead of speaking her mind and letting it be known that she does not want to engage in the acts she goes along with it, out of shock or fear, or maybe even the hope that it won’t be that bad.
In the end the woman was taken advantage of and violated but since she did not speak up or “fight back” up the man does not feel like what he did was rape.

I feel there is not enough fear in men of being accused of rape and definitely not enough discourse of what constitutes rape, because if they really feared it they would make sure the woman who they wanted to perform sexual acts with was always 100% on board with what is going on, not to mention the statistics on rape would be much lower.

Not guilty and innocent are miles apart. I’m not sure how much of the feminist discourse you have been listening too, but just because a person recants doesn’t mean they weren’t raped. Just because a charge wasn’t filed, or a person wasn’t found guilty doesn’t mean that the whole world is, in fact, peachy keen.

The rate of false rape accusations is similar to the rate for other crimes.

The claim that these rates are the same (2%) originated within the New York City Rape Analysis Squad in the early Seventies. The original source has long since vanished, but it certainly pertains to the unfounding rate of the department. But “unfounded” does not mean “false”. Reports can be, and often are, unfounded for reasons other than being false, and false reports are sometimes disposed of under other codes. This is particularly true for rape, where the unfounding rate can be subject to political pressures.

Also the figures for one department cannot be regarded as definitive. Estimates from other sources for the proportion of rape reports which are false range, quite literally, from 0% to 100%. Rumney points out that estimates of false reporting rates for non-sexual assault range from 0% to 17%.

Daran, I’d never even heard of the study you’re talking about. As far as I’d heard, the basis for that statement was from the FBI’s 1996 Uniform Crime Reports, which (last I checked) listed a ~8% rate of unfounded reports for each of rapes, physical assaults, robberies and arsons. (IIRC the unfounded rates were dropped in favor of non-conviction rates after that, which is pretty useless since everyone knows how miserable rape conviction rates are, though we probably disagree on the reasons why. If I’m wrong, I’d love if someone could point me to the more up-to-date results.) I’ve also seen other government reports, from Britain and Canada as well as the US, that pegs the unfounded rape rates in those countries at within a few percentage points of the UCR results, so it’s hardly “one department”.

BTW, if you’re implying what I think you are with the comparison to violent assault* estimates, you are mischaracterizing Rumney’s study. The ridiculously-high estimates were from early years and are very flawed. Some include speculation from Freudian psychology, horrible definitions of rape (eg., marital rape doesn’t count as “real rape”), and poor data sources (such as a police dep’t that threatened to polygraph rape victims who didn’t recant). You can’t compare sexual assault data with violent assault data because societal attitudes towards the two are so much different. People find it harder to believe a suspect who claims “(s)he consented” to being violently assaulted. Our society is so lacking in serious, accessible discussions about sexuality but so prolific with the Cosmo/PUA type nonsense, which leads people to believe some strange and twisted ideas about rape and sex that most would never buy about nonsexualized violence. Marital rape was legal in most (if not all) western countries just thirty years ago, and while it was outlawed in the US, most states still treat marital rape as a lesser crime; it’s not uncommon for people (inc. those in law enforcement) to hold the belief that marital rape is impossible by definition. AFAIK, domestic violence is considered an additional charge on top of assault in most places, not a lesser charge. Of course, the average rape victim & rapist fit different profiles than the average assault victim & assaulter. While DV is sadly too common, I’d be very surprised if “date assault” or “domestic assault” composed 4/5 cases. And I’m pretty sure anyone who cited Freud while estimating the number of unfounded violent assaults would be laughed out of town.

* I’m going to use this as shorthand for nonsexual aggravated assault, if you don’t mind. I know there’s some overlap between sexual assault and aggravated assault that causes physical injury, and that sexual assault could legitimately be categorized entirely within violent assault (whether or not any injury is caused), and that it is usually categorized entirely within aggravated assault. But I think this comment is already turning into a text wall without me clarifying that every time.

I’m surprised, though perhaps I shouldn’t be, that you are unaware of where the myth came from. References in the literature to the rate of false reporting for rape being the same as for other crimes do indeed date back to the seventies, an influential source being Susan Brownmiller’s “Against Our Will” published in 1974. Rumney discusses this claim at length.

As far as I’d heard, the basis for that statement was from the FBI’s 1996 Uniform Crime Reports, which (last I checked) listed a ~8% rate of unfounded reports for each of rapes, physical assaults, robberies and arsons.

I just downloaded this, which says the following on the page numbered 24, (page 21 according to my viewer.):

As with all other Crime Index offenses, complaints of forcible rape made to law enforcement agencies are sometimes found to be false or baseless. In such cases, law enforcement agencies “unfound” the offences and exclude them from crime counts. The “unfounded” rate, or percentage of complaints determined through investigation to be false, is higher for forcible rape than for any other Index crime. Eight percent of forcible rape complaints in 1996 were “unfounded”, while the average for all index crimes was 2 percent.

This, I think, is sufficient to refute this as a source for the claim that the rates are the same, (which in any case predated it by two decades)

I’m not, however, arguing that the rate for rape is higher than for other crimes. The claim that complaints which are “unfounded” have been “determined through investigation to be false” should be taken with a pinch of salt, Complaints are not always investigated thoroughly, and are sometimes “unfounded” for other reasons. Also, as I pointed out before, complaints determined to be false may be disposed of through other codes.

Unaddressed is the question of how reliable are police determinations of truth or falsity, and how one accounts for the substantial proportion of cases which end up in the “don’t know” pile.

For these reasons, I do not consider “unfounding” rates to be indicative of false reporting rates.

(IIRC the unfounded rates were dropped in favor of non-conviction rates after that,…

My recollection from when I looked at this a few years ago, was that I found that the paragraph I just quoted was repeated near word-for-word in several successive UCRs from the earliest I could find online, until it was dropped completely from some point onward. I don’t know why it was dropped, nor whether it has been reinstated in more recent reports.

The near word-for-word repetition lead me to wonder if the numbers really were being recalculated on the basis of the data for that year, or if the paragraph was just being cut and pasted from one report to the next.

If we indulge in the fictions that false rape reports are a well-defined category, that all reports are thoroughly investigated, that unfounded reports really are precisely those found to be false, that the police are always correct in that assessment, and that only true allegations ever lead to convictions…

They we can still say no more than that the false reporting rate is somewhere between the unfounding rate and the non-conviction rate. Not very helpful. If we dispense with those fictions, then we can’t even say that much.

…though we probably disagree on the reasons why…

There are, broadly, two reasons:

1. The police and prosecution services aren’t very good at investigating and prosecuting rape.

2. One of the elements of rape – non-consent – rarely leaves a physical trace, leaving many reported incidents open to reasonable doubt.

To what extent the low conviction rate is attributable to the one, or the other is debatable. Nor are the two really independent. The low chance of establishing guilt in a he said/she said case may result in the police deciding that their investigative priorities are elsewhere.

If I’m wrong, I’d love if someone could point me to the more up-to-date results.) I’ve also seen other government reports, from Britain and Canada as well as the US, that pegs the unfounded rape rates in those countries at within a few percentage points of the UCR results, so it’s hardly “one department”.

Unfounded rates are all over the place, and as I already pointed out, have little to do with false accusation rates.

BTW, if you’re implying what I think you are with the comparison to violent assault* estimates, you are mischaracterizing Rumney’s study. The ridiculously-high estimates were from early years and are very flawed.

I’m not sure what you think I’m implying, but I cited Rumney solely for the proposition that “estimates of false reporting rates for non-sexual assault range from 0% to 17%.”. The latter figure was a typo – should have been 19%. See footnote 126.

I didn’t provide a citation for the proposition that “Estimates from other sources for the proportion of rape reports which are false range, quite literally, from 0% to 100%.”. Rumney’s selection of findings range from 1.5% to 90%. To my recollection (I don’t have the paper in front of me) Kanin found estimates from as low as 0.25% to as high as 98%. (There is, of course, a difference between “finding” and “estimate”.) It should be obvious that both the ridiculously high figures and the ridiculously low ones are very flawed. In fact, every figure is flawed because of the failure to account for the “don’t know” pile.

You can’t compare sexual assault data with violent assault data because societal attitudes towards the two are so much different.

Our discussion started with your claim that the figures were “similar”. I’m the one objecting to that proposition.

People find it harder to believe a suspect who claims “(s)he consented” to being violently assaulted.

One reason for that is that sex is something that people quite often do consensually. People rarely consent to being punched in the face outside of a boxing ring or dojo.

I think a lot of people forget that women aren’t the only ones who are raped. My 7-year-old son was raped by a 13-year-old autistic child brutally and repeatedly. He feels pushed out by support and recovery groups because there aren’t a lot of resources for male victims of rape. Many people assume that rape is only part of women’s culture, but it’s just not the case.

Also, about the fighting back thing…it’s ridiculous to expect someone to attempt to fight off a rapist. In many cases, it is clear that the rapist is completely in control of the situation and that any fighting would only make things worse. My child was pinched into submission and told he would get in trouble if he made noise. He was too little to believe anything else. Fighting just isn’t always an option, physically, emotionally, or otherwise.

I hope that as the people who wrote this article, and those who responded to it consider the subject of rape in the future, that they will remember that rape happens to more than just college girls.

@SVF: By which I assume you mean it’s women’s responsibility not to go to work or school or church or bars or parks or restaurants, walk down the street, attend sporting events, or leave the house in any way. Because those are all situations in which women can be raped. Rapists attack women in all those places.

Hell, the majority of rapes are committed by womens’ husbands, partners, and members of the women’s own family, particularly if the victim is a child. So staying at home isn’t even a safe option, because rapists attack women there as well.

“By which I assume you mean it’s women’s responsibility not to go to work or school or church or bars or parks or restaurants, walk down the street, attend sporting events, or leave the house in any way. Because those are all situations in which women can be raped. Rapists attack women in all those places.”

Turn that argument around to see what mischiefmanager is asking of men.